Where Was God

This week, Mike Huckabee gave a great answer to the "Where was God" question concerning the awful tragedy in Newtown, CT. Watch the video below to hear his answer, then click here to read his further response to the criticism that followed.

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Tragedy in Newtown

There is hardly any way that we can understand such a horrible tragedy as that which occurred in Newtown, Connecticut this week where a 20-year-old young man killed 20 children and 6 adults. The magnitude of the event overwhelms our minds and causes us to struggle with absorbing such an act of evil.
 

Nothing we say can lessen the pain and the horror that these families are going through as they attempt to cope with the loss of their children, some as young as five years old, some not able even to tie their own shoes. There is no use in trying to overcome such extreme guilt with religious or even Christian platitudes about the love of God. The minds and hearts of the people who are so impacted by this tragedy must have time to go through the grieving process before they can deal with such questions as the reason why.

There will of course be those who immediately attempt to place blame: poor security at the school, missed signs in the shooter’s previous behavior, the failure to legislate stronger gun-control laws, etc. As with all tragedies, some will ultimately put the blame on God, asking, “Where was God while these innocent children were being murdered?”

In my last blog entry, I began dealing with the question of God and evil. The belief of many, if not most, people is that, if He could have, then a good and loving God should prevent such evil as this massacre from ever happening. If God is unable to prevent it, then He is not all-powerful and not worthy of our worship. We should expect such reasoning from a world which has, for all intents and purposes, turned its heart away from God already.

Yet these thoughts should never trouble the hearts and minds of those who are believers. God is sovereign in the Universe and in control of all things. That means that nothing is “out of control” in the Universe, not even Satan and evil. All of these things must be under God’s control or He is not sovereign. God does not cause someone like this shooter to intentionally go to a school and murder little children and their teachers, but God does know about it – in fact, knew about it before it happened and could have prevented it had He so desired, but He was willing to allow it to happen anyway.

Now the question that we immediately shout is “Why?!”

But the question of why goes to motive. It is the same question that we ask about why this young man committed this crime. In our hearts we struggle to understand something like this and feel that if we just knew why he did it, we could more easily cope with the outcome of his decision and actions. Yet the reality is that, even if we understood perfectly why he committed this crime, the tragedy would be no less horrible and the same number of children and adults would be dead, and our hearts would be just as torn apart as they are when we do not understand his motives.

The fact that we do not understand why God created man in the first place or why God works the way He does or why He allows evil to exist in the world has no bearing on the fact that He does. This is simply the way things are, and our understanding of God’s motives would not change the way things are. We would still cry at weddings and funerals and laugh at comics and love our families and hate our enemies. God’s motives and the question of “Why?” have no real bearing on the outcome.

During the Christmas season, our attention is focused on the birth of Jesus and the events which surrounded it. You may recall that the gospel of Matthew tells of the response of Herod when he learned that a child had been born who would one day become King of the Jews, threatening Herod’s claim to that title.

To protect his own interests, Herod sent his forces to kill all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under. Here was mass murder of innocent children on a scale that we cannot conceive – a savage slaughter at the hands of their own ruler.

We have no record of how many children died during that slaughter, but Matthew used a prophecy from the prophet Jeremiah to give us an idea of the extent as well as the effects of the tragedy: “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more” (Matt. 2:18).

Yet we also need to be reminded that as this slaughter took place, there was one child who was rescued and carried to safety far from the point of danger. This child not only survived the killings, but grew into the man Jesus who epitomizes love and mercy and brought the grace of God into the world of men in the form of flesh. By His life and ministry, His death and resurrection, we have hope.

Those of us who know Him as Savior are keenly aware of the fact that the only answer to such tragedies as we witnessed this week in Connecticut is Christ. By His sacrifice the sins of man are forgiven and we are reconciled to God. His is our hope and salvation and there is salvation in no other name given under Heaven but that of Jesus Christ.

It is the black background of such horrors as the evil that occurred in Newtown, Connecticut that bring into sharp relief the light and life of the newborn Child of Bethlehem, born to Mary and laid in a manger over two thousand years ago. He is our only hope for peace.

Isaiah 9:6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

God and Evil

One of the most difficult questions for a theist to answer concerns the relationship between the sovereignty and the goodness of God and the existence of evil in the world. Those who cannot reconcile the co-existence of a good and sovereign God with the existence of evil will usually respond by either denying or modifying the meaning of God’s sovereignty and/or God’s goodness, or by denying the existence of evil. He will argue that, if God does not have the ability to prevent evil, then he is not omnipotent or sovereign. If God does have the ability to prevent evil and simply allows it to exist anyway, then he cannot be good.

The skeptic or the inquisitor typically asks probing questions such as “If God is sovereign and good, then why does he allow evil to exist in the world?” Or in a more aggressive mode, the skeptic or inquisitor may ask, “How does one explain the goodness and sovereign control of God over the creation to a child who has been brutally abused by an adult?” Or “How does one explain such evil as we recently witnessed in the subway of New York where a homeless man pushed another man chosen at random onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train?” He may even go so far as to declare that God’s allowance of such evil as the abuse of a child and the random act of violence against a stranger demonstrate that God is, in fact, evil himself.

Generations of theologians have wrestled with these questions, so there is not much chance that they will be answered within the context of this short essay. Hopefully, we will revisit this subject in days to come. For this essay, let’s begin with the question concerning the young girl who was so tragically abused. How do we answer questions concerning the greatness and the goodness of God in light of such a horrendous event?

First of all, let’s establish some fundamental truths about God. God is sovereign in the Universe – in fact, in all of eternity. His sovereignty is not an element of time, space, and matter, but of infinite proportions. He is omniscient, so there is nothing that has ever occurred that He did not know about. God never learns anything because he already knows all that can be known. He is the source of all knowledge and wisdom.

Furthermore, God is eternal. He has always been and always will be; therefore, he has always known all that he knows. That means that before he ever created anything, God knew about the person who would commit the crime against this young girl. But he also knew everything else that would ever happen and everybody else that would ever be born. Yet he created them anyway.

Since all that God does is righteous and holy without any degree of error, we can be assured that this way of creating is the only way that a creation could take place. God may have had options related to the method of creation depending on his purpose for creating. However, when he determined to create for the purpose of applying his plan of redemption, God did not choose from among a series of options. A world where evil is an integral part of the system is the only way his purpose for redemption could be accomplished.

God’s ultimate goal and desire is to be worshiped with the same degree of adoration as that which exists within the Trinity. The purpose of creation was to produce sons that would worship him and give him glory for all of eternity as does the Son and whom he could love in return with the same passion that he loves the Son. The method by which God produces those sons is called redemption, a plan which was instituted before the creation of the world. In order for there to be redemption, there had to be a reason to redeem – a condition or a place from which man needed to be redeemed.

Therefore, God created the universe as we know it – a universe that, though created perfectly, was allowed by God to become imperfect and corrupted by sin. For those of us who are created – finite beings deficient of the attributes of omniscience and omnipresence – such a method seems fraught with risk. C. S. Lewis addressed this idea in Mere Christianity:

The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free.

Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk.

I see one weakness in C.S. Lewis’ argument: For God, there was no risk. He knew the outcome before he ever began the process of creation. Sin and evil did not catch him by surprise, but are an integral part of what he determined to accomplish through the creation. He knew that the conflict between good and evil would produce the fertile soil needed for the generation of righteousness in the creation and the regeneration of a corrupted creation and fallen man.

As with all of the creation, man, too, was created perfectly. However, God could not declare the creation of man as “good” until he had created complementary aspects of the human being in the form of a man and a woman. The created being of man was only finished after God created a woman. The intimacy that would develop between the complementary elements of the human being, both recreational and procreational, was intended to create a unity in their existence that to some degree simulated the intimacy between the elements of the godhead and gave a forecast of the passion that awaits the completion of God’s purpose in the creation.

Nevertheless, like all other elements of the creation, this relationship, too, was corrupted by the introduction of sin into the environment of man’s perfect world. What God had designed for the purpose of unity became a tool of cruelty in the hands of man who forfeited his God-like image in exchange for the uncertain knowledge of good and evil. That decision by man separated him forever from the wisdom of God apart from the gracious act of God’s redemptive plan.

Once separated from the source of knowledge and wisdom by his sin, man found himself destitute of righteousness and of the ability to recover what was lost by his rebellion. He became a creature that was totally depraved – not devoid of some degree of goodness and even altruism, but incapable of maintaining a righteous stature – both within himself and in his culture – in which that goodness would be the norm apart from the necessary element of force.

All men are descended from that first man and thus every man is, by genetic makeup, corrupted, incapable of achieving righteousness in his own power, and destined for an eternity separated from God. The man who perpetrated the cruel abuse in the original scenario above is a product of the totally depraved nature of man after the fall. He may be acting within the parameters to which he has been limited by God, but he is not acting by the direction of God.

He is exercising his will with malice toward another human being, but he is exercising that will within the limited realm of total depravity, apart from God’s direct involvement. He commits such a crime because he has no power of constraint within himself and despises the constraints that God and society attempt to place on him. He has chosen, and for his choices he will face the ultimate judgment of God. Thus the goodness of God has no direct bearing on the abuse.

Forgiveness

Recently, we learned that a couple who are friends of ours are separated and contemplating ending their marriage. It seems the husband committed an indiscretion that the wife cannot bring herself to forgive. In fact, she is repulsed by his actions to such a degree that she can barely stand to be in his presence for very long, so they are permanently temporarily separated. Forgiveness is not even on her list of response options. Murder, maybe, but not forgiveness.

Please understand that I am not writing this to judge either of these great people. I love them and pray that God will perform a miracle of reconciliation in their lives and restore them to effective service in the ministry of the church. Nevertheless, real-life events like this often bring the things of God into sharp focus. This event turns my mind toward the meaning of forgiveness.

First of all, consider the reaction of this wife to her husband’s breach of trust and then put the entire event in the context of eternity. In other words, multiply the wife’s feelings of revulsion by infinity. Then consider the sin of Adam against an infinite, eternal, holy and righteous God. Now you can begin to get a feel for the separation that existed between holy God and fallen man. Yet God forgives! In fact, He had the plan of redemption – which includes the response of forgiveness of sin – in place before He ever created Adam. (2 Tim. 1.9-10)

God is omnipotent – He knows all things – past, present, and future. This means that He planned to forgive Adam even before Adam sinned. Forgiveness was built into the relationship package. Adam was God’s creation “for better or for worse.” One might argue about when God knew what and how much control He had over Adam's actions, but the fact is that He planned to forgive even before Adam sinned.

If marriages were built on the same premise, then spouses would respond to indiscretions of their mates in a very different manner. Even if we were repulsed by the others actions, we would be drawn toward them,willing to make a sacrificial effort toward reconciliation. The problem is that we are flesh and blood. We are not God.

I am convinced that forgiveness is an attribute that is uniquely God's. Only God can do it. There is no other power in the Universe that can forgive. It is that hard. For this wife to forgive her husband will require the intervention of the omnipotent Holy Spirit empowering her to do what she could never do on her own. Only He can heal such glaring wounds. We are powerless against them. All of our efforts will never mend a broken heart or restore a violated trust. Such mending requires the touch of the miraculous – something which is no challenge for God.

Here is another point: To forgive requires our complete surrender of self to God. This is not a call to fatalism, but to surrender. Forgiveness is extremely hard – virtually impossible – but forgiveness must begin with the offended: God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5.8).

I am sure in her anger this wife probably would like to kill her unfaithful husband, but God even thought of that and did it for us in substitution: In Christ we have redemption through his blood (that means someone killed Him on our behalf), the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace (Eph. 1.7).

Now for a moment consider the husband. If he could take it back, I am certain he would. But that, too, is impossible. He can never undo the wrong. I am sure he is making every effort at retribution, but there is nothing that a person can do to restore trust back to its original condition, no matter how hard we might try or how good we are in the future.

Again, put that in terms of eternity. How could a finite man think that he could ever be good enough for God to accept his works as retribution or as payment enough to restore the broken fellowship that existed before sin? The sin of man was of infinite proportion and thus it cannot be atoned for apart from an act of infinite love – better known as grace. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God (Eph. 2.8).

When it comes to love between a husband and wife, we tend to want to lean away from the sacred and holy for various reasons – especially when the subject concerns intimacy. Yet in light of all that I said above, we should think about this: When we say to each other, "I love you," it must include such an idea as God taught us by His actions:

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4.10).

With this kind of love, when we say to each other "I love you," we are confessing that, no matter what happens – even when I am offended and repulsed by your behavior – I will pay the price for reconciliation. "I love you" means that my desire for you will always outweigh your transgressions – that even when you step back or even if you step away, I will not move except in our direction. I love you so, that I give to you that which means more to me than anything else in all the world – myself (John 3.16).

As with most marriages, I fear, this couple did not make this kind of covenant. After the trust is broken, the covenant cannot easily be restored short of the supernatural. Of course, the best thing would be never to violate the others trust, but such things are common among humans. So the next best thing is to make the commitment before the flesh has an opportunity to fatally wound our spirit and our relationships.

A Great Historical Principle

It's been almost three weeks since the presidential election, but here is a reminder for all those who are still struggling with the outcome.

"...all representative characters act, consciously or unconsciously, as the free and responsible organs of the spirit of their age, which moulds them first before they can mould it in turn, and that the spirit of the age itself, whether good or bad or mixed, is but an instrument in the hands of divine Providence, which rules and overrules all the actions and motives of men." (Phillip Schaff, History of the Christian Church Vol. III, 1882)

Thus President Obama is simply a product of our culture and an icon for the moral, ethical, spiritual, and political principles which have come to define this age of history. Even so, he and the world in which he governs serve as instruments in the hand of God. Whatever President Obama's legacy, whether for good or for evil, he will have served the purposes of God in the fulfillment of His plan for the creation. By the willful decisions of men God's will is fulfilled.

I had a conversation with a lady in our town just before the election. She was extolling the greatness of God and how times like we are in now require us to put all our faith in Him. I replied that Christians should be setting the example for the world of what it means to have peace because God is in control of all things. At this point in the conversation, she was in agreement with me.

Then I said, “Daniel 4.17 says, ‘God chooses the rulers of nations and he always chooses the basest of men.’”

She immediately responded with “Oh, I don’t believe that. God is never going to override our free will. He allows us to choose our rulers then He works with whomever we choose.” She went on to add that God did not put Hitler or Stalin in place.

I tried to point out the examples of Pharaoh and of Nebuchadnezzar, but she was not prepared to hear my explanation, so I tactfully let the subject drop.

Free will. Men will not let it go. Man will not willingly surrender to God that which he seized from Him in the Garden.

A New Revival

Yes, I know. I have started and stopped posting to this blog on several occasions. So this should not be a surprise. I will give this another effort. Maybe this time, maybe the revival will stick. If you would like to comment, click on the title of this article. Comments will be at the bottom. Thanks for visiting!

I am subscribed to several sites that send daily emails. This morning one of them posted an article that I really liked entitled "Why You Cannot 'Do All Things' Through Christ." If you are like me, you probably had a knee-jerk reaction that said something like, "What!" You should read the article to get the whole gist of what the author was saying, but in summary, he pointed out that Paul wrote this verse (Phil 4.13) from prison - a place he could not get out of, even though his faith in Christ was so very strong. The verse does not give us permission to claim that we can accomplish any goal we set our hearts simply because we depend on Christ to accomplish that goal through us. Sometimes, we fail. How would we explain that?

What the verse means is that, even in the midst of prison or any other adversity or time of blessing, we can still praise the Lord of Heaven because of Christ. It means that we can be content with having much or having little, in good times as well as in bad, when the news is uplifting or crushing. Christ does not change and has promised to never leave us. Therefore, we can face anything that comes our way through faith in Him.

Oftentimes, we must re-evaluate our traditional interpretation of what "thus saith the Lord."

I pray you have a great day.